Aspects of the present disclosure are directed to slider fabrication, and in particular to an improved manner of measuring flatness of a slider surface.
Sliders can be used in storage devices, such as hard-disk drives. Slider are provided with air bearing features that controllably affect the manner by which the slider “flies” at a fly height on an aerodynamic air bearing created by a spinning disk, forming a head-media separation distance between the slider and the disk. Specifically, the aerodynamic and topographical (height-related) properties of the slider and a slider surface thereof influence the fly height in addition to pitch, roll, head-media separation distance, and other important features of the hard-disk drive.
Sliders generally do not have desired, ideal, or uniform flatness, and may have surface feature imperfections for a variety of reasons. One way to increase performance and to reduce the head-media separation distance is to better flatten or reduce the roughness (and thus increasing the flatness) of certain of the slider surfaces, in particular an air bearing surface of the slider.